Courage Dear Heart 1 John 4:18 - Personal Blog of Trisha Rapley, Australian Author.

I am not afraid of love itself.

Love has never been the enemy.

What I fear is the moment before it, the quiet threshold where the heart must decide whether it will open again, knowing full well what it once cost to keep it open.

I am afraid of falling, not because love is cruel, but because I remember how deeply it teaches.

How it rearranges the soul.

How it leaves fingerprints on places that time does not erase.

I am afraid of the softening.

Of becoming tender, where I learned to be strong. Of letting someone see the parts of me that were rebuilt with prayer and tears, the parts God had to gently stitch back together after disappointment, tried to convince me that love was unsafe.

There is a particular vulnerability in falling in love again, an intelligence in the fear.

This is not immaturity; this is wisdom remembering. It is a heart that has known depth and understands that love is not a game, but a sacred exchange of trust.

I fear falling because falling implies surrender.

It means releasing control.

It means admitting that, despite all I know, despite all I have healed, I am still willing to be changed by another human being.

And yet, something in me refuses to close.

Because love, when it is right, does not demand amnesia. It does not ask me to forget who I was

or pretend pain never shaped me. It asks me to bring my whole self, the healed parts, the cautious parts, the praying parts, the parts that still pause before leaping.

God has taught me that fear does not disqualify love.

It simply reveals how deeply I value it.

So I stand here, not running, not rushing, not retreating, but discerning.

I no longer fall blindly. I fall prayerfully.

I fall with boundaries that protect the heart God restored.

I fall with truth as my footing.

I fall, knowing that real love will not rush my healing or mock my hesitations.

It will meet me with patience, consistency, and reverence.

This time, I am not asking love to save me.

I am asking God to lead me.

And if love comes again, not loudly, not urgently, but honestly, I will not call my caution fear. I will call it stewardship.

Because the bravest hearts are not the ones who feel nothing, but the ones who choose to open again after knowing exactly what it means to lose.

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.

1 John 4:18

Lord,

You see the places in me that still pause at the edge of love.

You know the memories that taught my heart to be careful and the hope that still whispers beneath the caution.

I ask you to guard my heart without hardening it,

to lead me into love without asking me to abandon wisdom.

Teach me to trust you more than outcomes, to recognise what is from you, and to walk forward without fear of being undone again.

If love is part of my path, let it come clothed in truth, patience, and peace.

And if waiting is required, let me wait with hope, not walls.

Amen.

Courage Dear Heart 1 John 4:18 - Personal Blog of Trisha Rapley, Australian Author.

Courage Dear Heart 1 John 4:18 - Personal Blog of Trisha Rapley, Australian Author.